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I have watched with concern the recent development in Oyo and Ondo States in which quit notices were given to Fulani herders and there were subsequent burning of the property of the Fulani herdsmen in some parts of Oyo State. These happenings have increased the tension and unduly raised the temperature in the country.

The ugly development in these two states are symptomatic of the continued threat to the unity of our country that we have witnessed on a higher scale in recent times and in different parts of the country, including the South-East and South-South zones.

At this point, I strongly appeal to all of us to work for peace and take initiatives that can douse tension. Both the elite and ordinary people have a responsibility to begin to take measures that will reassure the people across the board that a united Nigeria will benefit everybody better than a disintegrated country.

The deafening silence by key stakeholders, leaders and others who we think should speak out is worrisome. This silence is a dangerous tell-tale sign that things are wrong. This is not good for our country. We must all speak out and talk about the solution to this twin-problem of insecurity and threat to national unity.

We all do not have another country to call our own other than this one country, Nigeria. We need to live in peace with each other and it is my prayer that Almighty God will continue to preserve the unity of the country. I have the conviction that there are many more things that unite us than the few points that cause disagreement among us. Let me use my case as an example of why this country should continue to grow as one united and progressive entity. I am of Fulani origin and have a Yoruba mother. My father was a Muslim and my mother is Christian. Thus, I am affected on all sides by any inter-ethnic tension in this country. I am sure there are many Nigerians that are in a similar situation.

Also, a united Nigeria is better for the entire world than a disintegrated country. The relevance of Nigeria in the international community is due to its size, population, and collective resources. Any attempt at disintegration removes the cloak of importance around Nigeria in the global community. We must all strive to douse the tension and keep our country together. This is definitely not the country we inherited from our forebears and it is not what we intend to pass on to the generation after us.

I appeal to President Muhammadu Buhari to provide leadership. Mr. President, take measures that will reassure all and sundry that you are working on the problems and that nobody should lose interest in a united, peaceful, and progressive Nigeria.

It is important for President Muhammadu Buhari to rally all interests and everybody at the leadership levels to a round table in order to discuss and find appropriate solutions. Let me reiterate my earlier suggestion that President Buhari should call all relevant politicians and stakeholders together – former heads of states, retired and serving security chiefs, present and former leaders of various arms of government, traditional rulers with relevant experience, experienced youth with the technological know-how to solve security problems and even international civil servants of Nigerian origin who can help. Everybody must be made to contribute ideas on how to save our country from insecurity, disunity, and invasion by criminals. Mr. President, please, call everybody together and provide the much-needed leadership to solve the problem. This is a period that requires all hands to be on deck. This is not the time to talk of APC or PDP. It is a time for all to work for Nigeria. This is a problem for all and should be solved by all.

I want to also make a passionate plea to my brothers, Ahmed Lawan and Femi Gbajabiamila, both of whom are experienced legislators, to provide the far-reaching legislative intervention that will help the executive arm in the search for peace. The situation is getting worse by the day. Insecurity has become the order of the day and it is fueling disunity and criminal activities.
Let me also call on all politicians who are looking towards 2023 to take over power to start pondering on what type of Nigeria will they have to administer post-2023 if the current situation continues. It is better for all of us to join hands together NOW to quell the raging fire of disunity, insecurity, and work to mend fences. I know some politicians will not be able to contribute ideas if they are not called upon to do so by those who currently have governmental responsibility to do so. However, please don’t keep quiet when called upon. We must all intervene as patriots and forget our personal interests. For the sake of our forebears who handed over this country to us, we must work hard to make things better so that when we meet them, we will have a good account to give that we improved on what was handed over to us.

In the meantime, let all stakeholders speak up on the danger confronting and diminishing our great country. The attitude of keeping quiet and ‘sidon look’ while waiting for the next election to start making promises will not help anyone.

What type of election or country are we going to have in 2023 if the current situation persists?

A stitch in time saves nine.

My silence in the last three days doesn’t portray me as a coward, but by virtue of my position as the Aareonakakanfo of Yorubaland, I am bounded by my conscience and conviction to act accordingly when the time is right. And I must also consult widely before taking any action”

“What Igboho said was not even as damaging to the sanctity of the nation than the call for civil war by the ACF and the Miyetti Allah put together.The killer herdsmen are the major problem, but sadly the Federal Government remains silent”

“There are reports that the Fulani herdsmen have, in the past five years, killed over 300 Yoruba people from different communities while several other people have been kidnapped with abductors paying several billions as ransom
-Iba Gani Adams (The Aare ọna Kakanfo of Yoruba land).

For soldiers to escort murderous Fulani herdsmen back to a community in Ogun state from which they were earlier evicted and then to publicly whip members of that community for evicting them simply beggars belief.

Have the people of the South West now become slaves in their fathers land? Have we finally been conquered and occupied?

It is utterly mind-blowing. It is wicked. It is evil. It is unacceptable. How much more bloodshed, carnage, violence, insults and humiliation are the people of the South West expected to take? Soldiers are whipping our people like dogs in the street in order to reinstate those that are killing, raping and maiming them?

Is our Army a Nigerian Army or a Fulani Army? Are the Fulanis superior to all others? Are they above the law? Is the Presidency a Nigerian Presidency or a Fulani Presidency? Why do they always speak out in defence of killer herdsmen and never for their victims?

It is only when you have met someone whose whole family has been raped and butchered by Fulani herdsmen that you will know or appreciate what is going on in the South West. It has become a daily occurrence.

They have kidnapped, maimed and slaughtered traditional rulers, businessmen, politicians, elder-statesmen, farmers, artesans, lecturers, teachers, students, artists, pure-water sellers, market women, hairdressers, the rich, the poor, women, children and so many others including the beautiful daughter of Baba Reuben Fasoranti, the leader of Afenifere.

For Miyetti Allah, the ACF, the NEF or anyone else to say that the Fulani “own all the land in Nigeria” and that we are “being provocative”, “beating the drums of war” and “asking for a second civil war” by calling for the arrest and eviction of the killer herdsmen and murderous thugs from our land is insulting and provocative.

Only the ignorant, cowardly and uninformed talk like that. Only those that are secretly behind the carnage, that profit from it and that sent the herdsmen to unleash terror on us can say such things.

The Constitution does not grant the Fulani or anyone else the right to commit murder in Nigeria or to turn the South West into their killing fields. The Constitution does not regard Yoruba blood as being cheaper than others and neither does it prescribe that the Yoruba people are to be treated like sacrificial lambs and killed at will.

Some Yoruba leaders want to be President or Vice President in 2023 and are therefore prepared to keep quiet and tolerate this rubbish that is being done to our people. I am not one of those leaders. Nothing in this world can make me trade in the blood and lives of my people. Nothing will make me turn a blind eye to their sufferings or betray them.

For me my people come first and politics or political expediency comes a distant second. I will speak the truth no matter the consequences, no matter what it costs me and no matter whose ox is gored.

And the truth is that Chief Sunday Igboho, Governor Akeredolu, Afenifere, Professor Akintoye, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, SOKAPU, the Southern and Middle Belt Leaders Forum (SMBLF) and all the other individuals and bodies that have spoken out against the murderous activities of the herdsmen in the South West and elsewhere are right.

And those that have supported or attempted to rationalise the criminal behaviour of the killers in the name of political correctness or political expediency are treacherous, shameless and irresponsible.

If you are a Yoruba man and you want to be President or Vice President I wonder whose affairs will you be presiding over and who will you lead or represent at the national level if all your Yoruba people have already been killed?

Soon we shall start calling the collaborators and coward’s out by name. You betray your own just for support, acceptance and promotion from northerners whereas no northerner worth his salt will ever sell his own people out for you? Nothing could be more reprehensible than that.

Shakespeare wrote ‘cowards die many times before their death’ and Soyinka wrote “the man dies in him who remains silent in the face of tyranny and injustice”. They were both right.

The man has died in too many of our leaders today and the time to speak out is now. We all need to take a cue from Sunday Igboho.

Enough is enough. Too much blood has been shed and too many lives have been taken by these herdsmen in the South West and elsewhere. They kill in the North, the Middle Belt, the South South, the South East and everywhere else and they do it without remorse and with total impunity.

Peace-loving and law-abiding Fulanis are welcome in the South West but those that kill, steal, rape and destroy must leave and they must be brought to justice by the authorities. If this does not happen expect many more Sunday Igbohos to rise up.

The worst culprits in all this are the Buhari administration who are complicit in these crimes and in this ethnic cleansing, mass murder and genocide. I say they are complicit because they have refused to disarm the perpetrators, arrest them or bring them to justice despite the fact that it is their constitutional duty to do so.

They have failed to maintain law and order and to protect the lives and property of the Nigerian people and they continue to pamper and encourage the killer herdsmen.

The Presidency no longer speaks for the Nigerian people but only for Miyetti Allah and the Fulani herdsmen. This is a tragedy of monumental proportions and no matter what they say they will never change.

(FFK)

Former Governor of Ekiti State, Ayodele Fayose, has cautioned against any attempt to arrest Sunday Adeyemo, a youth activist popularly known as Sunday Igboho.

He told Oyo state governor Seyi Makinde and Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, that arresting Igboho would escalate tension in the South-West region.

Recall that the Senior Special Assistant to President Muhumadu Buhari on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, during an interview with BBC Hausa, said IGP Adamu, had ordered the arrest of Igboho for giving Fulani in Oyo State an ultimatum to exit the state.

Shehu also claimed that the IGP had ordered the Commissioner of Police in Oyo State, Ngozi Onadeko, to immediately transfer Igboho to Abuja after his arrest.

Makinde had also directed Onadeko to arrest “persons found guilty of stoking ethnic tension”.

However, Fayose wondered why Igboho would be arrested, saying northern governors had a dialogue with terrorists.

He tweeted, “Gov Seyi Makinde should rather use dialogue and persuasion instead of escalating tension in his own State by calling for the arrest of Sunday Adeyemo or anyone at this time.

“If FG and some governors could ‘dialogue’ with Boko Haram terrorists, Gov Makinde calling all stakeholders to a round-table discussion will not be a misplaced action.

“Any attempt to arrest anyone will cause a further threat to the already fragile peace in the West and the country as a whole. Above all, any unchecked escalation may lead to a state of emergency.”

Fellow Nigerians, please, take note of the title of my column this week. I did not say Nigerians are dying. That is stale news, as well as an understatement. My focus is that the country called Nigeria is dying. I do not know what sort of security briefing President Muhammadu Buhari, regularly or periodically, receives from his obviously reticent and incompetent security team. I doubt it includes the fact that Nigeria is speeding towards a monumental collapse, unless a miracle, or something drastic is done to stop this supersonic drift towards perdition. It might even be that the President does not receive any or proper security details, either because he does not want to hear or worse still, he assumes all is well. Whichever way one contemplates these last two scenarios, it is a calamity indeed.

Believe me, I’m not writing as a wailing wailer, or as a Prophet of doom. I am not writing as a clairvoyant or a seer. I merely write as a realist. The symptoms of a failed nation are just too palpable to be missed or ignored by a reasonable people. I am not talking about a State which has failed because of social and economic policies that even the authors and protagonists cannot decipher or fathom. This nation is on the precipice because its leaders are playing Russian Roulette with the security of Africa’s biggest and most important country. It is all now a matter of guesswork, that the gun is loaded, but the way we are going it is looking like every chamber is now full and not just one. Whatever shot you fire is bound to be the killer shot. Our leaders clearly know this but are in such an inebriated state that they have become oblivious, impervious and immune to all the danger signals.

I know power makes people blind. It intoxicates, addles the mind and takes full possession of the powerful, especially if they want to play God. This is why I’m shocked that some Nigerians are already daydreaming about becoming President in 2023, when they have no guarantee that Nigeria will still be alive by then. Or maybe I should not be surprised because what better can one expect from this bungling class of crass elements. The usual leading contenders, as typical of this confounding breed of persons, are pretending that all is well, although they know much better having been the contributors to, and cause, of the problem. They must not be seen to be criticizing the rudderless, directionless and visionless government of President Buhari lest they are marked down as enemies of the President. They know that elections are never held here, stricto sensu. What we have is a selection process with the hapless people being trundled out to deceive the unsuspecting international observers who can’t believe that what they are seeing is possible even in a Banana Republic. Simply put, elections are largely controlled from the very top, where the omnipotent President holds sway, and the outcome of the selection process is dictated by his whims and caprices.

If nobody has yet told the President, then he must hear this somehow. Our security situation is more than dire and grim. It is now catastrophic. Nigerians are now being killed, kidnapped and raped in places that used to know only peace. The orgy of banditry has since moved from the core North and middle belt to Yorubaland, previously considered a safe haven. The tales are unbelievably horrid and terrible. The situation in Ondo State is so critical that the Governor Arakunrin Rotimi Akeredolu (SAN) has now cried out that the “Fulani bandits” must move out of his State within seven days. I salute him for having the courage to say it as it is, being a member of the same party as our most reluctant President who seems unabashedly unaware of the bloody forays and operations perpetrated by some of his kinsmen in far-flung territories and domains outside their traditional space. The Governor obviously cried out in utter exasperation, frustration and, perhaps, fear. I knew him as a die-hard Buharist. But only a bastard would sit arms akimbo and watch his mother or daughter being raped by some monsters and say or do nothing! That is the situation in which Arakunrin Akeredolu has more or less found himself. As with the President, he has discovered, albeit tragically, that family comes first. Nobody will watch over yours, when theirs is also threatened by the same fate. As the Yorubas will say, “a ki so ori olori, ki awodi gbe t’eni lo”!

Osun State has virtually become a major theatre of war involving series of killings and kidnappings. I don’t know if the Governor, Adegboyega Oyetola, has been as vociferous as Arakunrin Rotimi Akeredolu (SAN), but I am sure he is slowly being driven to come to the same conclusion. Akeredolu has nothing against the Fulani. There are many great and peaceful Fulani living in different parts of Nigeria. Some generations of Fulani people have fully integrated in those communities outside their sphere of influence without anyone raising eyebrows. But these bloodthirsty wanderers and vagrants, who are said to have meandered their ways from outside Nigeria, must be flushed out and ruthlessly dealt with regardless of whether the current President of Nigeria is their godfather, avuncular mentor, swami or whatever he represents to them.

The situation in Oyo State is just as scary. I have read the account from no less a personage than the highly respected and revered Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Lamidi Olayiwola Adeyemi III, another die-hard Buharist who now appears ready to part ways with Buhari if necessary. I have had the opportunity of sitting with Iku Baba Yeye, as we fondly call him, and I know how disappointed this esteemed traditional ruler is that the Federal Government has refused to act speedily and decisively on the matter of the gross insecurity ravaging and destroying the country. I was not surprised to receive his lengthy letter to the President days ago which I hope Buhari found time to read, or someone found the opportunity to read to him. I won’t bother to talk about very reserved and highly respectable and regarded Northern Leaders led by the spiritual monarch, The Sultan of Sokoto, Sa’ad Abubakar, a cosmopolitan and cerebral leader I have come to love and adulate so much for his simplicity and forthrightness. Virtually every part of the nation is haemorrhaging to death while the Federal Government is watching helplessly and hopelessly!

The Alaafin has done well by properly documenting some of the dastardly acts of these merciless bandits and his public missive to our President, Muhammadu Buhari excerpts of which are worth repeating on these pages because the letter is one for posterity whatever fate befalls the entity presently known as Nigeria and whichever way the country goes in the end:

“In recent times however, I am worried about the security situation in the country, especially in the South West geo-political zone, nay the entire Yoruba-speaking area of the country including KWARA, Kogi, and Edo States.

“This has to do with the incessant and increasing menace of Fulani herdsmen that have laid siege in almost all the highways of Yorubaland. Whether in Owo, AKURE, Ilesanmi/Ife-Ibadan Road or Ibarapa zone and Ijebu area of Ogun State, the story is the same.

“I have held series of consultations with opinion moulders and eminent Yoruba leaders across board about the menace of these cattle herdsmen with such assault like raping of our women and on some occasions in the presence of their husbands. That is apart from massive destruction of our agricultural lands; which ultimately points to imminent starvation…

“After due consultations with Yoruba leaders… we are worried by the audacity of these lawless people in effecting their illegal acts in broad daylight on our usually bushy highways without any arm of security being able to do anything…

“Now, we cannot even talk of parading suspects, when in actual sense, no major arrests have been made in this part of the country. Without arrests we cannot talk of their facing of the law.

“Unfortunately, and painfully indeed, in the face of the apparent helplessness of our security agencies, where do we go from here?”

It is at the wake of this manifest frustration of our people that our people have found it unavoidable, even though reluctantly to resort to alternative measures to safeguard their lives and property… Today, it is not merely infraction in the course of doing business, but blatant and criminal violation of the constitutional right to life and liberty of innocent citizens of Yoruba land. A few publicly known instances will suffice.

Certain individuals were kidnapped along Erio-Aromoko Road, Ekiti State. They were tortured and exposed to danger in the forest for upward of two weeks.

These victims included the Secretary of the Nigerian Bar Association, Ikole Branch, Adeola Adebayo, whose decomposing body was eventually found after a ransom price of four million Naira had been paid.

Two officials of the Federal Road Safety Corps, both Yoruba, were picked up along Ilesa-Akure highway. In the process of this kidnap, an unnamed individual died.

Musibau Adetumbi, a legal practitioner based in Ibadan, was going to attend an Appeal Court session in Akure when he was kidnapped along Ilesa-Akure highway. Professor Adegbehingbe, a surgeon at Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife was abducted along Ibadan-Ile-Ife highway. Dr. Muslim Omoleke, the Administrative Secretary of the National Electoral Commission was kidnapped around Ilesa, Osun State.

Mr Ayo Oladele, an employee of Guinness Nigeria, and an Old Student of Christ School, Ado-Ekiti, was abducted and taken away and lately, Dayo Adewole, son of a member of your 2015-2019 executive council and Minister of Health, Professor Isaac Adewole was kidnapped on his farm at Iroko, a village along Ibadan-Oyo Road…

As ugly as the picture above seems to be, the people of Yoruba land have remained generally peaceful and have resisted concerted efforts to push them into civil disobedience or adopting self-help mechanisms to protect themselves…

I am therefore writing to you, as a concerned stakeholder in your administration, to alert you and demonstrate to you, the urgency of the need to quickly respond to these and other issues concerning Yoruba land….

There is a general impression among opposition group that you are not known to take decisive and proactive steps in many matters of national interest and that you are not usually too disturbed about the gale of insecurity in Yoruba land…

As no major arrest of Fulani pseudo herdsmen has been made till date in Yoruba land, suspects cannot be paraded, let alone arraigned…

I am aware that members of the Odua People’s Congress scattered all over the world are already being mobilized to stand in the defence of their land and are ready, willing and able to raise an army of volunteers as was done in 1968 by the Agbekoya…”

These are pearly words of wisdom and advice from a monarch who is practically deified in Yoruba land. The President has been stridently admonished and strongly advised in forceful, resounding and vibrating language which is reverberating all over the polity. Effectively, Alaafin Adeyemi is saying that enough is enough and that things will get pretty unpleasant and nasty, pretty soon, unless the President wakes up from his deep, almost comatose, slumber and does the needful by a wholesale revamp and reshaping of our security architecture and thereby protect his fellow Nigerian citizens. The President swore to uphold our Constitution, it is about time that he started upholding that oath by acting like a patriotic Nigerian and safeguarding all his people and preserving their property.

On a similar note, I have been watching the videos of a militant Yoruba man, named Sunday Igboho, from Oyo State and what I see is raw determination to unleash mayhem, if need be, to protect his kinsmen from the brigands and mosstroopers trampling on them and their rights. The views Igboho expresses are symptomatic and reflective of the views of most of Yoruba land. He is the latest Yoruba hero for his fearlessness.

I hope and pray that President Buhari would appreciate this authentic security briefing from The Alaafin, one of Africa’s most important custodians of tradition and culture and resist the temptation of sending his trigger-happy military against the people of Oyo State. They are obviously ready for a full-scale showdown and battle in order to redeem their manhood against the rampaging kidnappers, rapists, raiders and corsairs. I foresee a civil war and bloodbath if action is not taken soon.

May this cup pass over us…

The Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Mohammed Adamu has ordered the arrest of Sunday Adeyemo, popularly known as Sunday Igboho, over the quit notice he issued to herdsmen.

BBC Hausa quoted Garba Shehu, presidential spokesman, as confirming the arrest order during its programme on Friday.

Shehu reportedly stated that the IGP informed him of his directive to the Oyo State Police Commissioner, Ngozi Onadeko, to arrest Igboho and transfer him to Abuja.

Recall that Igboho had asked herdsmen in Igangan in Ibarapa north local government area of Oyo to leave within seven days following reports of the killing of some Oyo citizens.

The quit notice generated tension in parts of the state.

This development led Oyo State Governor, Seyi Makinde, to ask the IGP to arrest those fomenting trouble under the guise of protecting the interest of Yoruba people.x

Popular Yoruba activist, Sunday Adeyemo a.k.a Sunday Igboho addresses a crowd at Ibarapa in Oyo state at the expiration of his ultimatum for Fulani herdsmen to leave.

The activist who accused the herdsmen of being behind criminal activities in the area, also alleged that the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari has brought nothing good for the South-West except social vices .

He said;

“The Fulani have gone, we have sent them out of our land and they cannot come back again. Kidnappers cannot rule over us, they can’t take over our land from us. It belongs to us; they should stop threatening.

“Those who live with us peacefully; we are not fighting them but how will a visitor claim one’s house from him. If you live with us in peace, we have no problem with you but if you decide to kidnap and kill us, we don’t want you here. I assure Yoruba people, particularly those in Oyo State, that there is no danger.

“This one we have started here in Oyo State will not end here. We are going to other parts of the South-West. Tell Fulani herdsmen in Ekiti State, Ondo State and Osun States; in fact, in all South-West states that they should get ready for us because we are coming.”